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sciencehabit writes "Science reports that silkworms may be an ideal food source for future space missions. They breed quickly, require little space and water, and generate smaller amounts of excrement than poultry or fish. They also contain twice as many essential amino acids as pork does and four times as much as eggs and milk. Even the insect's inedible silk, which makes up 50% of the weight of the dry cocoon, could provide nutrients: The material can be rendered edible through chemical processing and can be mixed with fruit juice, sugar, and food coloring to produce jam."

I seem to recall some sci-fi book I read where they'd solved the problem by surrounding the astronauts with water (ie, the ship's water supply was basically in the hull). I can't recall any of the details, but that's always stuck in my mind as a vaguely good idea, assuming it works, as you need heaps of water anyway and if you can double it as a radiation shield then so much the better!

From what I know they're merely aware of the problem and haven't fully solved it, unless I'm really mistaken there's no way for current spacesuits to completely shield astronauts from radiation outside the earth's magnetic field.

I'm gonna have to request a source for that. I've heard no such thing, all I've heard speculation that the actual physical mechanics of it, what with two weightless bodies and all, would be pretty daunting.

Plus, I bet it's more the fact that astronauts are in extremely cramped conditions in a decidedly non-sexual situation."It's the z-gravity baby, I swear!"

From what I understand, it's almost impossible for people to have sex in Zero-G. Male Astronauts have apparently tried quite a bit, even with the help of drugs, but they -can't- get an erection. This makes sense since most of the blood in your body flows to your head when you're in Zero-G.

So NASA just needs to screen astronaut applicants for the ability to mastrubate while standing on their head...

In space, yes. Outside the earth's magnetosphere, no. Even out on the moon, the magnetosphere still protects them from much of the nastiness (solar wind, cosmic rays, etc.), but if we're gonna go to Mars or wherever, we'll need to bring our own protection.

The Apollo missions were short duration, and during Solar Minimum, but they were taking a chance. There was a risk (which was known at the time) that a major solar flare could kill the astronauts while they were in cis-lunar space.

Cause, you can't really have a first man to walk on the bottom of the ocean, I mean, pretty much any beach goer does that. Whereas you can have a first man to walk on the Moon/Mars/an asteroid. My point is, regardless of the scientific interest, space is just more sensational. The depths of the ocean are just creepy.

Just in case you were unaware, Kangaroo is relatively commonly eaten in the great southern land of Oz. It's considered a generally "low quality" meat though, and is also used as pet food. Although, you can get kangaroo steaks and burgers intended for human consumption in most supermarkets or on the menus of some eateries, especially at tourist locations.

Koalas on the other hand are legally protected.

As a note, Australia is the only country in the world that eats both the animals displayed on its coat of arms (Kangaroo and Emu). I'm not sure the British could, even if they wanted, since they have a Lion and a Unicorn, and most Americans would probably be a little averse to the idea of Eagle for dinner.

I think the silkworms probably do make more sense than trying to get a bunch of roos on a space vessel (I'm loving the imagery of that though)

Liu's team calculates that given a relatively normal diet with a three-to-one ratio of plant to animal protein, each astronaut would need to consume 170 silkworm pupae and cocoons a day to fulfill their animal protein needs.

They taste kind of like a very musty bean, but they have the typical cooked larva mouthfeel to them, a slightly taught exterior that 'pops' when you bite into them, and a soft creamy interior.

I'm not just talking shit either. Silk worms are a very common street vendor food in Korea, and I tried some the last time I was there. I'd seen them for decades, but I'd chickened out when I saw them in my earlier years.

If I was in some sort of survival environment, like the harsh vacuum of space, I wouldn't mind eating silk worms, but on a regular basis, I'm not too fond of them.

How are they served in Korea? Sounds like you ate them whole... cooked or raw? Can you get them fried? (yes I'm from the south). If they taste like beans can you grind them up into a hummus or bean dip? Refried worms, mmmm.

If you have a Korean market near you, you can easily find cans of silkworm pupas in some sort of paste/sauce. My mom used to get them (she's Korean) until she realized what it was she was buying/eating.

Space travel is extreme backpacking!
If you've ever backpacked, you don't think twice about eating food you wouldn't normally eat at home.
There are various gateway foods you can eat, such as sushi and in particular uni (sea urchin testes...no shit...nasty), which will make the consumption of silk worms seem like dessert.
Hunger is a powerful motivator.

People around the world eat some strange shit. Snails, dog, pork guts (chitterlings), carob-coated insects, fish eggs, and probably some nasty shit I've never heard of. Some of this stuff might be considered a delicacy tody, but I am sure it all started due to hunger.

Have you ever looked at a cow? What made some poor bastard decide to milk that huge, stinking thing? Yep. Hunger!

I watched a documentary a few years back that showed a guy driving a stick into the side of a cow. A stream of blood mixed with something else poured out of the animal and was collected and...gagh... drunk.

Gross is indeed relative. Somewhere in the world somebody is going to be freaked out what you consider lovely and normal and natural.

A girl I knew quite put me off eggs for a while after describing them as "chickens' periods" and somebody else said they found cheese a bit hard to eat when you consider it as congealed, old, mouldy animal milk. As for what goes into sausages and burgers and meat paste?

As for meat, a friend of mine worked in a factory and told me about the machines they used and how they reall

Knew a guy who liked to go fishing on the weekends. He'd bring back buckets of urchins, which I'd trade him for scotch. Worked out to about $7 USD (in the late 90's) for a gallon bucket full of the spiney little yum-yums. Did I mention that buying alcohol on an overseas base is cheap, since there's no state taxes?

Anyway, throw a movie in. Remove urchin from bucket. Cut urchin in half with kitchen shears while enjoying the spines moving about in your hand

Last year I was in Korea where the streets are lined with vendors frying up silkworm pupae on the street as an, *ahem*, delicacy. The smell wafting down the road can only be described as a cross between death and pus. I would eat my fellow astronauts over silkworms.

I dunno...young kids think pee drinking and worm eating is funny and often do strange things of that nature. What killed it for me was "Oh wow, Astronaut Ice Cream!" *munch* *munch* "This is disgusting semiflavored chalk! To hell with this nonsense."

It doesn't help that the previous generation had Apollo 11 and that "one small step" thing as a huge success. Then they had Apollo 13 and "Houston we've had a problem" that while missing the moon turned into a huge survival story success. My generation has had the Challenger and Columbia *kaboom* everyone dead stories. Now...building the Mir space station was a big story when I was a little kid. I remember our science teacher had us save our little milk carton things from lunch until we could build a huge one to hang up. Of course that one ended in a publicity stunt with Taco Bell promising free tacos if Mir hit some giant floating target in the ocean.

The previous generation got all the really cool and amazing space stories. My generation has gotten a few monumental failures, some publicity stunts, and space robots (which are pretty cool, but not a whole lot of that man to the moon excitement stuff).

Do we really need to waste precious cargo space and weight to bring up food coloring? I suppose astronauts might want green or purple catchup too.

All the precious cargo space in the world is pretty pointless if your crew gets pissed off and starts smashing things because they have spent the last 6 months in radioactive isolation while eathing nothing but mushed bugs. Even the most adamant basement dweller of Slashdot would go nuts if subjected to the monotony that would be interplanetary space-travel.

The big issue with space missions in mass. Silk worms aren't going to magically create silk worm meat (or whatever you call it) from nothing - for ever 1 kg of silk worm that you grow to eat, you will have to bring along at least 1 kg of silkworm food. So why not just bring human-edible food instead of silk worm food?

1) The article states that Silkworms seem to be the most compact form of Human-edible food. 1kg of Silkworm Meat will give you far more nutrients and proteins than 1kg of Chicken meat.

2) For a long-term space mission, (we're talking at -least- decades from now) you would need a renewable food source that ultimately converts solar energy into consumable chemical energy, since Humans can't eat sunlight. So futuristic Arcology-like spaceships might have greenhouses to harness solar energy, and astronauts could eat grown food. However, even Vegans need vitamin supplements and the article states that for protein and nutrient purposes, Silkworms make a great compact, efficient, renewable food source.

Citation needed. An unbalanced diet can require supplements, but a vegan diet can be balanced, at least according to the NIH, although it's harder than a non-vegan diet.

Citation: In space, there is a bit less biodiversity than on Earth. It wouldn't be a stretch to assume that it might be a bit difficult for astronauts to maintain a balanced diet if vegans here on Earth are having trouble doing so.

Meat goes bad.Vegetables rehydrate better, also they are easier to grow, using sun energy.

Beans in space for protein just seems like a bad idea to me. Also I think it takes the correct type of person to be a full vegetarian, I tried once it was pure torture. For others it was quite easy, and for others somewhere in the middle, kinda like a standard deviation curve you know. I think most people need some meat for their body to function properly, granted Americans eat to much meat, but we need some for a heal

The real worry is, under the influence of long term exposure to space radiation, the silk worms might show some interesting mutations. Like football size eggs, and an direct, so inverse, correlation between the number of silk worms and the number of crew members...

"Human-edible food" is like this simple loop that most people here should understand:

---> for (int x=100; x--; x>0)

After the function ends, the astronaunts die. I think I've read that astronauts "consume" 10kg of materials (air,water,food) per day so that it would cost 300kg to support somebody for a month if nothing ever got recycled. What space colonists need is a simple food-chain like this:

In this way, you can recycle the processed waste from the silkworm and the humans (i.e. the "Fertilizer") and combine that with available Sunlight to generate a continuous cycle of food. And when "not dying" is the goal, it really won't matter how it tastes.

Actually, insect protein is about as close to eating vegetarian, environmentally, as you can get without being a vegetarian.

Of course, you can survive on a vegetarian diet, but it's not always the easiest or lowest impact way of eating. For example, you can buy a goat for a third world family [mercycorps.org] from a non-profit development agency. They graze on things humans (and indeed most animals) can't eat, but they produce milk, wool and eventually meat at very little cost. I've bought some of these. For $175, y

This should be great for their fledgling space program and will prove they're committed to a peaceful future. They have vast quantities of old Silkworms [wikipedia.org] laying around ready to be made into food. Gives a whole new meaning to the term explosive diarrhea though.

...each astronaut would need to consume 170 silkworm pupae and cocoons a day to fulfill their animal protein needs. That number might be difficult to raise on a cramped spaceship but could be more feasible than raising an equivalent number of chickens.

I guess I took it for granted that 170 silkworms would be easier to raise than 170 chickens.

My bearded dragon eats these things...we even have a small colony of silks that we raise. Mulberry (which is what you feed them) is actually kinda hard to get some seasons though it does come in a green brick mulch form, I personally wouldn't want to eat silks, as I've seen the beardie eat them live and its damn right icky. Personally I'd rather eat tofu...

A Navy friend of mine worked on a Sub for many years. He always thought it was ironic that for a mission that required stealth they always seemed to have some of the loudest food you could find. Even MREs are edible, normal food.

Nothing in the exploration of space requires such nonsense self-depravation and oddities that keep getting leaked. I swear this is just a poly for more money.

Flour Torillas and refried beans is a remarkable compact food with spreadable cheese (think like butter) is easy to make. Even in zero G. Microwave it and you are good to go. The ideal of using silk worms is laughable when canned pastes and flat breads store very densely.

Here is a great "at home" experiment. Make a PBJ upside down. Doable with jelly in a squeeze bottle.

All of those can be packed\frozen\thawed with little trouble in dense formats.

Hell I know body builders that live on nothing but hard boiled eggs, whole grain bagels with peanut butter, diced chicken, milk, and tuna fish. 7 days a week. Years on end (excluding unusual meals on dates, holidays, etc.)

Chicken meat can be processed much like Spam and con be stored in a very compact space. Taking a cue from Tuna packaging you can use lightweight, vaccum sealed mylar bags to store the food. I have not tried freezing a hard boiled egg and thawing one to eat but bagels and even peanut butter seem to survive the freezer ok.

The key is density and as usual all things can be measured against SPAM for food density...:)

What you're not getting, is that they're concerned with finding a food source that can be replicated while en route to Mars. Say the Mars crew was 5 people strong. 3 years is 1095 days. For 5 people to eat 3 square meals a day, that's 5475 servings of food. Scratch that, not servings, but complete meals, which generally represent at least a couple servings of various food groups. The concern is that A.)You're packing a ton of extra weight that has to break Earth's gravity, and then adding in additional fuel to compensate, which then makes the craft even heavier. B.) That much food, even in compact forms like tuna cans and beef jerky, is still going to take a massive area just for storage. Again, extra weight added to craft for additional spacecraft real estate. C.)Survivability. Most of the foods you listed will not keep at room temperature for 3 years. Tuna, perhaps, but jerky, bagels, etc. Won't make it even close to that. You can freeze it, but this will also require extra gear, energy and materials to accomplish.

Now, if you were to introduce a renewable food source like the silk worm, most of those problems are reduced considerably. You leave orbit with only a seed population, and since their bodies, much like ours, are comprised mostly of water, it is not a straight equation of 1LB of worm food begets 1LB of worms. They eat leaves, which could theoretically also be grown using a minimum of resources, which only require light (free), water (recyclable) and soil (recyclable). Therefore you are netting a gain in food that is more than what you leave with from Earth.

I'm sure they will probably pack some regular food too, but likely more as an appeasement to keep the astronauts sane. It will be spaced out sparingly over a long ride, and is essentially a luxury. I view it a lot like the food situation in Firefly, where most of their diet is comprised from nondescript protein bars. If you didn't see the behind the scenes of them making those protein bars, I think you'd be looking at a very similar set of circumstances. Once the worms have been harvested, they can be processed any number of ways, including being refined and compacted into their most efficient form (bars). Then you add in a box of strawberries every now and then just to keep from going all bibbledy.